Out with the old, in with the New

Welcome March!  I for one am happy to pay February to rest for lots of different reasons.  I am more than happy to get one step closer to spring and summer.  March means a time change so we can get away from the infernal darkness (seriously...all week long in the winter...I barely see the sun because I am sequestered in a building...aka working, and the evenings are...dark!).  The other reason I’m ready for March?  Well, February wasn’t a great month for weight loss!  There was effort for sure!   But there was not a whole lot of success!

Let’s start with the goals for the month!  I had some monthly goals....let’s see how I did!!!

1. Track every bite of food. Victory!!!!!  I managed to continue tracking every bite!

2.  Put money into my savings. Success!!!  I managed this AND managed to also pay for my name to be removed from the property that I continue to co-own with my ex!  (The process is still in the works...but getting closer to completion!)
3.  Weigh less than I do now!  I don't care if it's a measly ounce...I want to weigh less!   Failure!  Big time failure!  I not only do not weight less, but I weight more!   My only positive is that I remained within the ‘three pound range’ of fluctuation that I am ok with!  I actually somehowmanacrd ONLY a 0.6 pound Gail for the month...so a half pound gain. Grrrr!
4.  Do something active (a walk suffices) at least 3 times a week. Not a total failure!  I did manage to get a bit more exercise this past month.   I managed to start running ....on the weekends.  I also managed to get a few lunchtime walks in (amidst the snow and cold).  But a consistent three times a week?  Yeah that didn’t happen!  Failure!

5.  Keep my calories within my caloric range at least six days a week....with and emphasis on getting the calories to the lower end of that range as often as possible!  I didnt do too badly with this...surprisingly!  But I didn’t nail it.  The first week of the month I did great!  The second week of the month I did horrible due to a holiday and a planned splurge on a weekend trip.  The last two weeks of the month weren’t horrible.  

So where does that leave me?  For one, I am Disgusted  with myself for wasting a month of effort with nothing to show for it!  But it leaves me with an idea of what I need to do in March.  I have my goals for March.  (The same goals as February actually...I need to totally nail these goals before moving on and adding new ones!). But I also have some ideas of changes that I need to enact.  So I guess it’s time to get into the goals and changes!

Goals for March:

1.  Track every bite of food

2.  Put money into my savings
3.  Weight less than I do now!  I don't care if it's a measly ounce...I want to weigh less!
4.  Do something active (a walk suffices) at least 3 times a week.

5.  Keep my calories within my caloric range at least six days a week....with and emphasis on getting the calories to the lower end of that range as often as possible!  

6.  Step goal on my Fitbit.  150,000 steps for the month.  

As you can see it is the same as February except that I added a sixth goal.  150,000 steps for the MONTH scares me. (Much to my shame)  My job is very sedentary and if I don’t do anything but get up, go to work, go home and make dinner  I end up only getting about 3 thousand steps a day.   This is a pitiful number of steps!  I SHOULD  be getting 10K steps!    But for the sake of doing these changes in baby steps, I am aiming for 5k steps a day.  (And I’m even giving myself a total free day...150k steps is 5k steps for 30 days...March as 31 days!).  This goal scares me...even though I know it had the potential of being VERY easily obtained!

So what are my plans?  

1.  I am going to focus on foods.  The sweet treats, even though they are calculated and entered into my food tracker are weighing me down.  I also knowfrom past  experience that if I eat too many carbs that I do not lose weight.  So I need to work on limiting that!  I just need to clean up my eating!

2. Exercise is another area.  I have promised myself so many times only to break that promise and vow ‘tomorrow’.  Well I am making the promise of three times a week.  When I wrote about this in a recent blog post, Sarah from 3purplethings.blogspot.com commented about promises.  She commented that she makes a promise to her husband or family members and she keeps it.  So I need to start thinking of these ‘tomorrow I will start’ comments as promises to myself.  I respect other people and therefore keep my promises to them...now it’s time to respect myself and keep my promises to myself.  This will involve actually scheduling exercise into my daily routine.  But I’m going to do my best!!!

I think that is enough planning and plotting for the moment!  I KNOW that I have what it takes to make this happen!  I know that I have it into me to lose weight and lie a healthy lifestyle!!!!  Now is the time to do it!!!!